Water, Fire, and Blood
by SergeantPixie
Summary: Elena wonders how many times she'll be reborn.


**AN: For Antonia. Song lyrics in order are Landscape by Florence + the Machine, Bad Blood by Bastille, Everything Burns by Anastacia ft. Ben Moody, My Blood by Ellie Goulding, Cold Water by Damien Rice, Purification by Fire by Cannibal Corpses, and Reborn by Stone Sour.**

**Water, Fire, and Blood**

_Born from dark water_

Elena knows what it is like to be reborn, by water, by fire, and by blood. She's sixteen the first time she is reborn, water spilling into her lungs, the calm reassurance of her father's hand, and then blissful darkness.

The girl who wakes up in the hospital bed is not the girl who held her father's hand. Her father is gone. The Elena from before was loud and impulsive and so full of life all the Elena from the water can do is close her eyes against her memories and beg for sleep. She's tired and bruised and above all, guilty. She put them in the ground, even if she never meant to hurt them, couldn't bear to hurt them, Elena killed her parents and was reborn in the dark water where they died.

She's been cleansed of the girl from before, Elena of the water is quiet and introspective and polite and determined to be anything but that sad little girl who lost her parents. Sometimes she even succeeds.

_All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry?_

When she meets her mirror, Elena of the water shatters into dust. Her face is the face of another woman. It's not really her face at all. It's not until she can feel her pain; the blood soaking through her clothes, the pain unbearable, that she is reborn again, in blood. Her blood is Katherine's blood as her face is Katherine's face. And later, she learns that Katherine's fate is her fate. Blood and face and fate. Irrefutable.

Katherine's wounds heal on her body heal much quicker than normal and leave no scars, but she still feels her there. She's been reborn again, she is the doppleganger, and she will die. Elena knows a lot about being reborn. Elena knows nothing of death.

No one else can see that she's been reborn again, but Elena can, because when she looks in the mirror, all she sees is someone else's face, someone else's blood runs through her veins. She's just a copy, never the real thing, and never the original; just a girl unlucky enough to be born with another's face.

She's the doppleganger, and she'll die, she's going to make sure of it. Elena the doppleganger thinks only of saving her family. She can't think of anything else, not Elena from before, or Elena of the water. She's been reborn again.

_Burning their lies, burning my dreams_

When she dies, all she sees is fire. Elena the doppleganger is sacrificed and Elena of the fire wakes up on a couch. Her skin feels flayed and she's burning up and it's all she can do to not peal off her skin with the tips of her fingers as if it's nothing more than an itchy woolen sweater.

She remembers the way Klaus's teeth sank into her skin, she still feels the heat of the flames, still sees the dancing flames when she closes her eyes. She feels like whoever she was before has been burned away.

Sometimes she wakes up with her last words trying to slip past her lips again. _Go to hell_. Maybe she's the one in hell, she's burning up and Jenna is dead and John is gone and once again she's proven to be death.

Elena of the fire is desperate for life but stares death in the face everyday when she looks in the mirror.

_And my blood is all I see_

It's funny how Elena of the fire becomes Elena of the blood even before Klaus tries to bleed her dry. From the moment he discovers that her precious blood is the answer to his hybrid problem, Elena is nothing but blood.

Elena knows the sticky, flaking way that blood dries on her hands. She knows the warm, metallic taste of blood in her mouth. She knows the way that blood feels seeping through her clothes, hot and tacky. She knows the color of dried blood and fresh blood and blood drying on skin, pulling it tight. She even knows what it is like to feel the blood being pulled from her body in thirsty, urgent gulps. Elena knows a lot about blood, but she couldn't anticipate the way it felt being drained from her veins, slow and hypnotic.

She isn't reborn in blood, she is reborn when Klaus decides that all she is blood. Not a doppleganger or a girl or sister or a lover. Just blood. She just doesn't realize it until it's being drained from her body and she's fighting against the fuzzy black edges of her vision.

She promises herself her last words will be just as good as the first time. _Rot in hell._ Elena from before, Elena of the water, Elena the doppleganger, Elena of the fire, Elena of the blood, it doesn't matter which girl you pick, none of them lack conviction.

_Cold, cold water surrounds me now_

Elena of the blood dies like Elena from before. It's funny, that such different girls, one so bright and shining, one so dark and bloody, could die such parallel deaths. But Elena of the blood gets to wash the blood from her hands in the cold water, when she puts Matt's life before her own.

And at last, all the Elenas, before, water, doppleganger, fire, and blood, they are all at peace. At last, that clueless, unbroken girl gets to atone for her sins. Just in time to die.

Elena of the water opens her eyes in a morgue and regrets. She was never supposed to go back to this girl. She was never supposed to be Elena of the water again, Elena who is dead but not dead.

She licks dirty blood from her fingertips for her family, for Jeremy. Elena of the water is a vampire but really she's no different from the first Elena of the water. There are still too many bodies with her names carved into their hearts. She is still stuck between two brothers. She still loves Jeremy more than the sun and the moon and the stars and death itself.

Maybe she cries sometimes, because she never wanted to be Elena of the water again, and here she is, repeating history.

_Purification by fire, transformation is rapture_

Elena of the water cleanses herself with fire. All the other girls had no say in their rebirths, but this Elena has only herself. No one else will make her decisions for her, and she wants to _burn_.

Striking that match is like putting a gun to her head. Dropping it is like pulling the trigger. _Bang! _She is reborn, in a fire of her own making. Elena of the fire feels nothing; it's glorious. She burns it all down, her home, her heart, Jeremy, all of it. It's gone.

Elena of the fire knows all about repeating history. But she also knows that fire burns, and that makes her untouchable. She likes being untouchable. If she's going to repeat history, it will be a history of her choosing.

Elena of the fire is death, and she owns it.

_I am dressed in tragedy, I am by design immortal_

Elena wonders how many times she'll be reborn. By water, by fire, by blood.

**AN: The first chunk is obviously the accident at Wickery bridge, the second bit is at the masquerade when Katherine puts the spell on her and Elena, the third is at the sacrifice when Klaus kills her, the fourth is when Klaus tries to drain the blood from her body in season three, the fourth is when she and Matt go over the bridge again, and the last one is when she burns down her house.**

**xoxo**

**-Pixie**


End file.
